AT&T asks drivers to take no-texting pledge

The "It Can Wait" campaign emphasizes the dangers of texting while behind the wheel.

Story highlights

"It Can Wait" aims to end the practice of texting and driving

On September 19, AT&T is hosting No Text on Board -- Pledge Day

43% of teens admit to texting while behind the wheel

Gripping ads feature victims injured or killed while texting

Randall Stephenson, CEO of AT&T, was watching the Olympics with his daughter when she saw it -- an ad featuring a man in a wheelchair suffering from a severe brain injury and holding a sign with the text: "Where r."

"This is the text message that caused the car accident that changed my life forever," the man said.

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The ad, from AT&T, is part of the mobile company's "It Can Wait" campaign. First launched in 2009, the campaign aims to curb texting and driving, especially among young drivers. It will be ramping up between now and September 19, or what the campaign is calling "No Text on Board -- Pledge Day."

AT&T is asking all Americans to visit ItCanWait.com on or before that day and take a pledge to not text behind the wheel.

Several AT&T competitors, including Sprint and Verizon, have their own anti-texting-and-driving campaigns in one form or another, a fact Stephenson said he welcomes.

"If it's just AT&T owning this issue, it doesn't get the traction it needs," he said. "This is a dead-serious issue and I don't mean that as a pun. People are dying ... we just need everyone to get after this and reverse this trend."

But with the ads like the one Stephenson watched with his daughter, AT&T's campaign has been most visible. Stephenson makes no apologies about the frank nature of the ads, another of which features a woman sharing the one-word text she'd sent to her sister, who was reading it behind the wheel when she flipped her car and died.

"I don't think you're going to move the needle without making people uncomfortable," he said.